Buying behavior has changed dramatically since the advent of the internet. More and more consumers are starting (and finishing) their customer journey on the internet, thus showing the importance and effectiveness of Digital Marketing. Even you as a business owner cannot deny your usage of the internet as a customer of other products. The way consumers make their purchasing decisions today makes Digital Marketing mandatory for any entrepreneur looking to set themselves apart from their competition. No matter the size or industry of your business, the knowledge on how digital marketing can promote your business will determine if you'll grow, and at what rate. But before taking the plunge into being present on the internet or web, you as an entrepreneur must understand how digital marketing can promote your business in order to use the right tools and tactics to reach and interest your audience. Digital Marketing can promote your business if there is a well-structured pla

In our world today, a successful digital marketer must be endowed with certain skills to be able to exercise his profession in an optimum manner. In these qualities, there are certainly those which are directly related to the work itself but also qualities that have no direct link with web marketing. These are the ones that will make a difference in the market! Stay tuned! 1. Analytics : As a digital marketer, it's not enough to just design cool photos or visuals, and post on whatever platform you deem fit. The first thing you should understand is your target audience and what exactly it is that you're doing for them. You can only certainly have a good insight into your target audience with the knowledge of analytics. For any brand to gain authority, analysis of statistics is important. The Google Analytics tool will allow you to perform this action. To do this, you should link Google Analytics to your site through the search console. Then, you will analyze the data that seems

A digital marketing plan is a map that guides you to achieve the objectives and goals of your brand. It is necessary for every organization that is involved in marketing. It is so important, it's not enough to just have a plan, that plan has to be effective. It has to bring results as early as it is implemented. For a digital marketing plan to be effective, it has to consider all necessary aspects of the brand/business, and it have to be realistic and practical. Something that you can look at on a wall and follow the steps without having to spend another hour or more trying to decipher the meaning of that step. Now, let's discuss how to create an effective digital marketing plan 1. Research : This is probably the most recurring word in any form of marketing. Whatever it is you're selling, you will sell better with proper research. Your research must answer the following questions: What am I selling? What is that one thing I'm promising my customers (USP)? Do I nee

Avatar... That's the word for it. I'm not talking about element-bending character here. Avatar means a buyer persona. Yes, your target audience, your ideal customers. What they look like, what they like, problems they're facing, things they desire, and so on. A fictional character that you create, give a name, attach a personality, and sometimes even a face. This enables you to remember that you're dealing with humans like yourself that have interests and desires. It is possible that you'll need more than one persona since your business could be targeting various kinds of people. How does this concern you ?  Your buyers/customers/clients are the reason you have a business. If you don't know what your customers want, you need to find out now. Having a buyer persona assists you in creating content that'll target and benefit your target audience. Luckily for you, I've got a list of things to help you create that persona. Follow me until the end... 1. Ask :

Online presence = Brand awareness.  Amidst COVID-19 lockdown and physical restrictions, the world has gone online with no sector left behind. Education, health management, agriculture, businesses, and of course, technology itself. Nigeria, our slowly developing country, has also followed this trend of being and living online. Being online indeed has numerous benefits for individuals and businesses. It is also true that most Nigerians are deep in the traditional business methods that they don't utilize the internet to its full potential. The few ones that do understand how to use the internet are either too young or inexperienced to think about business, or too one-track minded to actually explore. It makes you wonder, as a business owner that can only satisfy your countrymen within a specific mile radius.  You might have been asking yourself these questions: How do I get my business out there? Do people even know I exist? Or am I just a random drop of water in the Pacific? Should I

Many businesses have begun to understand the importance of having an online presence, and are trying to keep up with the ever-changing technologies and platforms in an attempt to grow sales and increase revenue. Marketing automation involves managing marketing processes and campaigns in autopilot mode, and its effectiveness cannot be overemphasized. It provides services ranging from scheduling emails to managing complex campaigns and analyzing data from previous tasks. So, how do you know when it's time to implement marketing automation? 1. Not scoring or generating leads as expected Leads are potential buyers of your products and/or services. Visitors become leads and leads become paying customers. If your current marketing strategy is only bringing visitors and stopping there, it might be time to change it. Marketing automation allows you to identify and design strategies that give visitors, leads, and customers personalized journeys as they move through the sales funnel. This wi

As you know, the only way to make money in business is to have customers buy from you. Of course, not everyone who encounters your business is going to buy from you.  If you know what you're doing, maybe 1 out of every 5 people who see your ad on social media decides to move forward and buy. If you don't know what you're doing, maybe it's only 1 out of 20 – and that can cost you a lot of time and money. In this article, a few tips are shared on how to get more customers saying YES and fewer saying NO. Read carefully. 1. Stay in touch Customers want to feel like they're being looked after and always have a point of contact. If they perceive you as aloof and difficult to reach, they're not going to buy. But if you're in touch with them every day, via social media, phone and email, they will know you better and like you better and trust you enough to buy. 2. Sell to existing customers When a customer has already bought something from you before, you already hav

What Is Digital Marketing? Digital marketing is the branch of marketing that employs internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to advertise products and services in a bid to increase potential consumers.  Basically, digital marketing will include any attempt to promote a brand, product, or service through the internet. This means could include, but not limited to, Social Media Marketing, Email marketing which includes newsletter subscription, Pay-Per-Click advertising, and so on. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones (SMS and MMS), callback, and on-hold mobile ring tones. The extension to non -Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing. Wikipedia suggests that the "development of digital marketing during the 1990s and 2000s, changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing&qu

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an important approach that businesses take to improve their visibility on search engines but offer more real value than that. Here are the reasons why your business needs SEO to take your brand to the next level. These reasons should offer some clarity, regardless of the industry or the business size, as to why your business needs SEO to grow. 1. SEO builds Trust and Credibility The goal of any experienced SEO is to establish a strong foundation for a beautiful website with a clean, effective user experience that is easily discoverable in search with thanks to the trust and credibility of the brand and its digital properties. Establishing a brand as an authority takes patience, effort, and commitment, but also relies on offering a valuable, quality product or service that allows customers to trust a brand. 2. Good SEO Also Means a Better User Experience Everyone wants better organic rankings and maximum visibility. Few realize that optimal user exper

Effective communication is essential right now. Regardless of what you do or what situation you’re in, this is a difficult time. For those lucky enough to be able to seclude themselves into their homes with provisions and technology, it’s a shift in what we’re comfortable with. For those who don’t have the luxury of being able to self-isolate, this is an overwhelming period of uncertainties and fears that many of us are fortunate enough to not have to think about. And for those who are lucky enough to be reading this article, you’re (hopefully) working or staying at home, looking for ways to ensure that your small business stays afloat during this pandemic. The thing we can control during this time is how we communicate. It’s critical that at a time when ‘normal’ has been redefined, privileges have been exposed and people are worried, that your small business doesn’t come off as exploitative, triggering, or unsympathetic to your customers. That is a sure-fire way of turning off your au

To embark in having the knowledge of affiliate marketing, it is helpful to have in  mind a couple of facts and statistics that illustrate the state of affiliate marketing in the business world at the moment.  Here are the facts and statistics of affiliate marketing: Approximately% of the digital media industry's revenue now comes from affiliate marketing. (BusinessInsider) Over 50% of top affiliate programs fall into 4 categories: Fashion, Sports, Health &, Beauty Travel. (AMNavigator) Top factors for choosing an affiliate program are product or service relevancy (18.15%), affiliate program reputation (15.97%), and affiliate network or tracking platform (11.58%). (AffStat) The most common places to find new affiliate programs include information on the merchant’s website searches on Google and affiliate network websites. (AffStat) Affiliate marketing will affect 14% of all e-commerce purchases in the United States. (DigitalCommerce360) With the power of social media, content pu

In this post, we shall be discussing the reasons why competitive analysis is necessary for your business to improve and also, on how to go about the research. Entrepreneur.com  defines Competitive Analysis as “identifying your competitors and evaluating their strategies to determine their strengths and weaknesses relative to those of your own products or services”. This action will help your business determine potential advantages and obstacles within a target market, plus gain new ideas. It can also help brands monitor how direct competitors are implementing content marketing strategies, how they rank in search engines, and how they effectively (or ineffectively) reach consumers. What you include in your analysis will vary depending on what you want to learn about your competitors' businesses. It could encompass high-level detail, such as the full scope of a market approach, or, in this case, illustrate what they are or are not doing well online. You can measure the effectiveness

Your business journey to creating a social media presence involves: 1. Setting your objectives : If you look from your perspective as a business, the things you have on your agenda, the things that you would like to achieve as a business, and the directions you would like to go into, how can you use social media to achieve them? These are the objectives you need to set. Related : How to create an effective digital marketing plan 2. Choosing your target audience : What that means is how can you reach out to the different target groups that you have identified for your businesses using social media tools that are available to you?  3. Selecting the social media channels you will use : So if you think about from the perspective of your business, once you have identified your objectives, your target group, what kind of social media channels are you going to use to reach out to them? Are you going to use one particular social media channel or are you going to use multiple? And how, in what

The basics: Developing a Content Marketing Strategy. Content marketing provides valuable information and/or targeted entertainment that fits your brand’s personality. For business owners, this fosters customer engagement and retention and draws new people to your brand. 1. Develop trackable goals - objectives Your goals must be SMART. Decide what you’re trying to accomplish and set quantifiable goals you’ll be able to analyze later. How many new Facebook followers are you trying to acquire over a set time? Pageviews? Likes? Email subscribers? Choose 3 to 5 realistic metrics to track so you can alter and update your strategy later. Keep in mind that content marketing won’t necessarily bring in a mass flux of new customers automatically. While customer acquisition should be tracked as you develop and share your content, the primary goal is to engage current customers and increase brand awareness. Someone who starts following your blog or social media may not need your product or ser